Edmund Turney Allen (January 4, 1896 – February 18, 1943) was a pioneer of modern flight test who flew for nearly every major American aircraft manufacturer and took some of the most famous planes of all time up for their first flights.
Early life
Allen was born in Chicago, Illinois on 4 January 1896. He had to work for three years after his father died to support his family. He then finished one year at the University of Illinois.
Career
World War I
When the United States entered World War I, he enlisted in the US Army Signal Corps as a lieutenant. He initially served as an instructor pilot but then was sent to the British flight test center in England to learn flight testing techniques. Before the armistice in November 1918, he returned to the US Army's flight test center at McCook Field, Ohio, to apply his flight experience and overseas observations. After the armistice, he became the first test pilot for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics at Langley Field, Virginia. In 1919, he returned to the University of Illinois for a year and then studied aeronautical engineering for two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Between the wars
In 1922 Allen designed and built the Allen AES-1 and Allen AES-2 gliders, with E.P. Warner and Otto C. Koppen, at the Aeronautical Engineering Society in New York. From 1923 to 1925, he worked as a freelance test pilot and also worked as a civilian test pilot at McCook Field. From July 1925 to mid-1927, he flew rebuilt de Havilland DH-4s as an airmail pilot for the Post Office Department over the treacherous Rocky Mountain routes between Cheyenne and Salt Lake City, sometimes under extremely adverse conditions. On 1 September 1927, when the Post Office got out of the flying business, Allen joined Boeing Air Transport, flying Boeing 40As as an airmail pilot on their new Chicago to San Francisco run. Over the next five years he began to do more and more test flying, particularly for Boeing Airplane Company, an affiliate of the Boeing Air Transport which later became United Airlines. In 1929, Allen was one of several pilots, including Melvin N. Gough, William H. McAvoy, and Thomas Carroll, NACA trained "in stability and control research techniques, including the ability to reach and hold equilibrium flight conditions with accuracy. As with all good research test pilots, the NACA group worked closely with flight test engineers and in fact took part in discussing NACA's flying qualities work with outsiders. All of this helped lay the groundwork for the comprehensive flying qualities research that followed." By 1932, Allen was a highly respected independent test pilot and consulting aeronautical engineer.
As a freelance pilot, Allen was the first to fly Boeing airplanes, Douglas airplanes, Northrop airplanes and other airplanes. Below is a list of airplanes flown by Allen: Boeing Model 83, the forerunner of the famous Boeing F4Bs and Boeing P-12s (25 June 1928) Northrop Alpha (March 1930) Boeing Monomail (22 May 1930) Northrop Beta (3 March 1931) Northrop Gamma (1932) Stearman 80 (10 April 1933) Douglas DC-2 (11 May 1934) North American NA-16 (1 April 1935) Sikorsky S-43 (5 June 1935) Spartan Executive (8 March 1937) Sikorsky XPBS-1 (14 August 1937) Boeing XB-15 (15 October 1937) Boeing 314 Clipper (7 June 1938) Boeing 307 Stratoliner (31 December 1938) He was also involved in the test flying of the Douglas DC-1 and the Consolidated XPB2Y-1.
World War II
In April 1939, Boeing gave Allen a permanent position as the head of the company's Research Division, and direct charge of all flight testing and of aerodynamics and wind tunnel research. In this position, he made the first flights of the: Boeing Stearman X-100 (XA-21; 25 January 1939) Boeing XPBB Sea Ranger (9 June 1942) Boeing B-17B (27 June 1939) Boeing B-17C (21 July 1940) Boeing B-17D (3 February 1941) Boeing B-17E (5 September 1941) Boeing B-17F (30 May 1942) Boeing XB-29 Superfortress (21 September 1942)
Even his position at Boeing did not stop the Army Air Force from borrowing Allen for the first flight of the Lockheed C-69 Constellation on 9 January 1943. He also piloted the first flight of the Curtiss-Wright CW-20 on 26 March 1940.